Why did this LEGO Set Disappoint Me? Independent Review of the Medieval Town Square
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 มี.ค. 2024
- Here at Building Together, we love Lego medieval sets. The new Medieval Town Square (set 10332) is quite good...BUT as we built it, we couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. Why? This video unpacks how unrealistic expectations can provoke negative sentiments regarding our hobby.
#lego #newrelease #review
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You pointed out the exact right point - Context.
The context here isn't just that other Castle sets have been better but that there are no low to mid-point priced sets to support it. Designers suggesting you can use a horse or cow from the Lion Knights Castle is absurd. Where are the $20-25 dollar sets with a couple of knights and a horse or some archers fighting a dragon? LEGO are doing a phenomenally poor job of cultivating the next generation of builders imo. Great video (as ever) BTW!
I think they just don't think there is a spot in the market for younger castle fans. they're famous for their market research so I guess they concluded the kids just really aren't interested.
I think they're right that kids are less interested in knights and pirates but I also believe that kids could be interested in knights, pirates, dragons again with the right stories, characters, collectable factor, etc
I just hope they figure it out soon and we can end with the nostalgia bait sets (the GWP's especially are egregious)
castle is timeless, Look how many medieval and fantasy themes they have that are pretty close to castle... LOTR, DISNEY, DREAMS, HARRY P. CLASSIC CASTLE, now DND, ETC.... it all kind of errodes away that foundation for pure castle themes. Parents should be a little more guarded as to what they buy for kids, IP sets have characters and known stories and kids will often replay the scenes they had in movies, but castle (especially this new wave) is full of stories to make up,. If I had kids I would not buy them IP only generic.
@@piotr78
If you want more knights buy them on bricks and pieces. Or go to a bricks and mini figs store if available.
@@TB-fz6jh sure, and most castle fans do exactly that. It's a very nice option to have but it isn't an option for kids, stuff has to be visible, affordable, and in stores for them to even become aware of it
@@piotr78 there is more castle sets coming. The dungeons and dragons and also you could have picked up the bricklink castle
Regarding stickers, while I'm not a fan of them, they're hardly the end of the world. The real issue is that with Lego's premium (read "super expensive") pricing, it's reasonable to expect only printed pieces, particularly when brands like Pantasy use all prints for sets of Lego quality but sells them for half the price.
didnt know about pantasy, looks great! thanks for the info
It would be nice if the had Castle theme battle pack. Something like a cow, pig, some peasants and a small build or a horse and some knights.
Agreed. That would be the perfect solution for people who were frustrated by the lack of animals in this set.
It would always be an uphill battle, the Lion Knights Castle is THE flagship of the current Castle theme. It would never be able to compete. By adding the goat, having a wolfpack member and the oval lion shield it mitigated its shortcomings.
The stickers like the wanted poster and beware as well as the green paint could be hinting towards future projects, but what has my hopes up is actually the lack of horses chickens, cows, and pigs. There is enough room to speculate maybe they'll do another civilian set, a farm? Combine it with a raid. But also the odd green paint in the shield room? Green? Could argue she's painting shields for the forestmen, but could also be something like the green chevrons?
Of all the reviews I’ve seen, this is the only one that absolutely nails it. An outstanding set with a small “*”.
Thank you for this breakdown and explanation behind your opinions. Very well done! 😁👍
I can agree with everything you said with the exception that I just genuinely really love this set. It could have had a few weeks to be perfect but it's still absolutely up there.
13:11 Basil the BatLord on a dragon .... looks like we might get a remake of the Fright Knights sets . AWESOME
I loved this set. It does practically everything I wanted. There are so few detracting factors, that it is on par with the other New Castle sets. I do think it could use another miniature (maybe some more customers or people to work the cheese shop and tavern) or two and possibly a horse, but otherwise it is quite good. I did snag a cow and horse off of eBay to add to the set, but otherwise I really like it. I can't wait to get mt Castle display up and together for this to go with. And I look forward to some more Wolfpack or Black Knights/Dragon Knights (to go with the letters being mailed) to really add more depth to the setting.
The poor execution of the doll house style is my biggest problem with the set. They don't even form whole buildings! The inn is taller than the tower? The one building has an intricate design with a folding ladder to ensure the minifigure has proper access to the second level of the stone building, but the tax collector and painter have no way in or out of their spaces? The wings are backwards on the dragon in the sticker as well. Going to need to moc my own second halves of these buildings. Maybe turn the stone building into a church.
yeah I will have to do the same to separate some of these. the inn and tower really do not belong. I am ok with not having a ladder to all areas in a doll house style thing it would seem hard to include at this scale. but if we make the other half the same building then will be easy... Ideally this could have been 3 sets. but am happy for it, and like modding my lego stuff.
Agreed. This is the main problem I have with it as well. The whole set is just haphazard feeling and lacks continuity. It doesn't seem like it was planned out very well, at least. Neither building has clips like the Lion Knights' Castle or other means of locking them in the closed position like the remake of Majisto's Magical Workshop did. This is before you even consider how the carpenter building isn't large enough to put everything in it, or the inn tower building not closing properly--there's a large open gap visible next to the stairs. The issues I have with it outweigh the positives.
Simply put, it's poorly designed and seems better suited as a starting point for a MOC of your own.
I agree, I will be upgrading quite a lot, but is a good starting point for those that want more. Which is what makes Lego so cool, is that non perfect sets can be made to suit each ones needs @@Vesperas_
I just received this set last night. I don't have any opinion of it yet, but I appreciate you tempering my expectations. I think that it will look good sitting in front of my Lion Knight's Castle and that's the main thing that I wanted.
Agree. Just finished building the set and i fee like i need to buy 2 to get the buildings in the quality i want to have. The 1st building is more or less ok-ish, but the tawer is terrible if you fold i together -> i plan to rebuild it and make 2 separate building out of it.
As a life-long LEGO fan and as an artist, I think there are 2 points that make this set dissapointing.
- The level of detail is too high for an official LEGO set. Where the oldest sets were very simple, these latest sets have an extremely high level of detail (almost compulsive) similar to what you can see in AFOL designs. It doesn't look like LEGO anymore. The best sets, like Mill Village Raid, Kingdoms Joust and Medieval Market, had a good balance of detail. Not too simple, not excessive.
- This set also lacks a sense of balance of scale. All the buildings are huge connected designs, with only some mini builds - a stall, a loom, etc. that are separate. There are no medium-sized builds, with the exception maybe of the tree. The other sets I mentioned had a better balance of build scales. From large builds - buildings, to medium-sized - a cart, a large tree, tournament stand, to small - a stall, a table. Such a balance is much more esthetically pleasing.
- A bonus point is the noticeable lack of larger animals. No horse for the nobleman, the courier, or the cart? No cow, or two sheep for wool to be spun into fabric for the loom?
The figures are great, but the set is a bit of a let-down.
Great review!
Thankyou for that tapestry history on the lego yello castle.
As a we child i got the 1st lego space station, didnt even have the raised craters. I collected lego space until they went to the white and blue instead of the grey and blue, season 3 i believe.
At that time lego castle appeared. So i ditched lego space and went to castle.
Every other video has claimed lego castle came out with lego space, which is not what i remembered. You are the first to confirm this.
So thankyou.
Nice review! Articulate, balanced, and independent. I don't have the set in hand, but from this and other coverage, I wouldn't rate it so highly. It's a lowering of the bar after it was raised so high with the Lion Knight's Castle. Nothing really stands out as particularly innovative, clever, or esthetically striking (though the curved thatched roof over the window is cool). It looks like just a solid, decent set. I'd maybe get it for half the price, but I don't see anything that justifies a $200+ price point, nor the amount of shelf space it would require to display it.
I don't fully agree. I own the Lion Castle and the Viking village and I'm 75% through building the market. I think the interiors and detailing are very well done and the strong point of this set. I would trade some of the detailing for a more well rounded total build, but it is what is is. I think it is very good.
For $230 this seems like a great deal! I bet most people who buy this have a few extra animals in their collection
Agreed.
I don't know. I think you could build and paint a nicer medival town diorama for that price. I think if it was designed to integrate better with Lion Knight it would be great
@@AlexTheGamer97 I could not build and paint a nicer medieval town square than this. And of course it's expensive, it's Lego. Lego is not cheap but it lasts a lifetime if you take care of it
I actually like the Funwhole Medieval village set a lot more, have you ever built any of their sets?
Thank you for such a thorough review. I will be buying this set no matter what but you point out some really interesting aspects of the build and display ability. I would rather it have been $299 beefed up some and maxed out with more minifigures and animals, oh and that Tree 😂
with you there! I guess I just need to wait for the right GWP
Damn. I just realized the cheese factory has the goat pen. That means they're making ghost cheese. I love cheese, but hate ghost cheese. This is so disappointing.
Should Lego do early access/patch lego sets :S - just wondering, what would be the best way for lego to answer criticism. For example, in the case of this set, presumably they aren't going to release a new lego village set for at least a few months or years, so if people want a lego village set, I guess they're just going to get this despite its flaws? Idk just curious what a good solution to that problem might be.
Forget your horse. Or even cow. Give me chickens! Every medieval movie I see has chickens in the road. Give me my bloody chickens!
And two more townspeople minifigs that can have legs swapped to "create" different minifigs should I buy another set.
The 3 building assembly is probably the weakest design, having a weak connection structurally and doesn't allow for fully opening the 2 side buildings. Also, 2 of those buildings have very weakly designed roofs, especially compared to the great other two. They feel unfinished and barebones.
Lastly, the minifigure count could be improved, but mostly the lack of farm animals is the biggest downside, requiring you to invest 10-20 more dollars to get a half-decent realistic town square, which is a bit insane considering this already costs as much as a flagship set at 230 dollars.
I do like the set, it is very enjoyable to build, the buildings (apart from the few flaws mentioned) are well designed and look great. The minifigs look sweet, have some original designs and I do love that they included a few good sidebuilds. (except the cart, which is just screaming for a horse or an ox to pull it)
Comparing this to Lion Knight's Castle directly, I think it is an inferior set. Lion Knight's is incredibly expensive, almost twice the price, but it is so much more sleek of a design, carries tons more pieces, has a ton of secrets and more than twice the minifigures. You could very well just buy that castle and ignore this set entirely, but I do think they combine very well.
Another great review 👏👏If you find that worth it, you might try to improve the set for the viewers 🙂
It looks like a fantastic build. My problem with the recent medieval sets is their scale relative to classic System sets. The nostalgia with my legacy sets is so strong, I can’t bear to invest in more Castle that won’t integrate well.
The problem with this set was no base plate... these are PREMIUM sets with a premium price tag. There is no excuse for the sets all having a full flat baseplate that create the actual square.
My biggest issue with the set is that in a world with the medieval blacksmith, the A frame and fishing store, these relatively plain buildings no longer cut it for me
I wouldn't say I am (or could have been) disappointed by this set. It's as you mentioned, peasants and wolfpack, the second big castle set in ages, has a goat and aside the little bits and pieces you found that don't fit properly, it's good looking. I plan to buy 3 of these and make all the structures as separate structures. The piece count is legendary for this price! I know.
However, the stickers included and them not being prints are a shame. While you can source animals from other sets or PAB, you can't replace the stickers here with any prints (what I would have wanted to see, at least the shop signs should have been prints, maybe even the small 2x1 tiles - Rivendell had a lot more prints if I saw correctly, don't have it yet - , just getting a shield, ONE shield and one chess board in a 230 euro set is too few) I just want to know how much would it have costed to make 6 prints. The design is already done ... how much more can it cost to print it as opposed to stickering it ... I am sure everyone would have accepted / paid 10 euro more for the good prints. They could have even made good money on selling the prints on PAB (especially the shop signs for people who may want to do a huge village / city ).
While these small issues are not a reason to not get it, it sours an otherwise GREAT set. It was never going to be as good as the lion Knights castle (and that wasn't perfect either), but it could have been the best set of 2024 if they added that last push for greatness and added at the very least the shop signs as prints and 2 more animals (I think having 2 sheep would have been useful, as we don't have current sheep in sets outside PAB) - and I for one would have been willing, more than willing to pay for these prints. I can't imagine they couldn't have made prints for 10 euro more.
As I understand it the costs of printing for Lego is not in the printing itself. It's in the storage space required for additional seperate parts.
@@piotr78 I would assume this would mean that instead of having 1 bucket with 1 million pieces, they now have 2 buckets, one with 900 thousand unprinted and 100 thousand printed. How is that much more expensive than doing the logistics for the sticker sheets? Do you have any link or something about this so I can give it a read? I am curious beyond good reason on this.
@@octav1600 Yep I believe that what I comes down to. I'll see if I can find the source again. It was either from a video or an interview. All I can remember is that Jangbricks refers to it from time to time, ill try and find it for you
"although I'm not sure where they got that Lobster" Because it's not a Lobster. haha.
Crawfish?
@@satellachannel6423 8:18
@@sharburns9786 Lol ok
My daughter and I plan to make a town moc this summer using the castle and down-sizing our blacksmith shop. We own no other castle sets. How does this scale with the castle? Is it worth getting 2 sets and use the 2nd to beef up what we have?
It scales perfectly with the castle and was legit made as a companion to it. You can tell by the castle tower looking the exact same. Scales perfectly
thanks!@@nickporter8893
sounds like a blast! I have seen some nice town moc buildings come from the blacksmith that would really fill up a town with this too. I think if you are willing to part with the 2nd set of minis and sell them on ebay could be more cost effective than brick link, but I am not sure I have not tried that.
For reference: I own the Lion Castle and Viking Village and think they are both master pieces. Almost flawless.
The market is not a masterpiece but still very good imo. I like that they included many little artisan builds and many small animals. Personally I don't feel 'farm animals are missing'. Much of the detailing is excellent, very cool and the strong point of this set.
Having said that, the lack of detailing on some of the roofs is regrettable. The colour scheme also takes some getting used to for me personally. I like the sand green very much.
The hinged setup is somewhat strange, as the closed rooms don't match. The 'natural pose' of the buildings is semi-opened.
Basically, the set has some bold choices and I really respect that, I think it is a very good set.
Thank you for doing this. You are the voice of reason and justice for all of us Lego fans. The lack of animals here is pretty incomprehensible and shameful.
incomprehensible..... because you don't understand it is dramatic.. and SHAMEFUL? lol.. this a lego review. don't be a weird AFOL. your opinion is possible without dramatic hyperbole.
Great video and analysis, I agree with you and I will moc the sh*t out of it :)
Make it $250 and include a horse, cow, and second goat. Also, no way should Rivendell have ANY stickers for that price. I don't LIKE stickers in this set, but I can live with it... somewhat. For these 18+ sets "only the best is good enough" does not appear to hold true.
The goat situation is actually well thought. It's been year since we've seen the first ones and people have been begging for a rerelease for as long.
So Lego released this big set, with a goat, and the second goat (to reach the same amount as in the previous set) is more widely available for anybody in the least expensive line possible.
Lego would've been decimated online if after all these years they gatekeep the return of the goat behind a $200+ pricetag.
The yellow on your stickers is wildly out of register. Nice review.👍
The major point would,be how to connect the castle to market place. And the trick young mentioned. I bought the market place…panic how long is the castle available… so lego creates a need room buy older sets. My second thought: for this money Ou could buy a playmobil castle for your kids. And they have fun without a doubt. I don’t see it that kids play with the lego market place. Keep up the good work.
I will grab this set to suport castle, already have actually, but common TLG you could have done better with the design...floors not aligning? hallways to nowhere? gaps? common man!
The chessboard is 7x7. This detail is pretty emblematic of my feelings about this set.
May I put out, that’s a Minecraft jute box 😂. It’s a reused print from Minecraft
Yes, I saw it later. Still a lazy solution, in my opinion: it could be the opportunity to finally have a chessboard piece (it's incredible that we haven't one yet).@@ClassicStudStudios
how do you even know its a chessboard.. it could be old school checkers. privileged spoiled adult fans are so weird nowadays, so picky random little things they don't understand serve as throwaway criticisms they can talk about forever.
privileged spoiled adult fans spend hundreds of euros (dollars) to buy these sets.@@Ro11oTomasi
It’s just a downward spiral for castle when they release lackluster sets which leads to poor sales and then Lego assumes that people don’t buy civilian castle sets. Happy to get a few new prints and all but not a day 1 purchase for me.
LEGO obviously had their reasons for keeping the set at a certain price, but it does feel like a set that could have been great if only for a few extra coins in the budget.
That tapestry sticker is misprinted. You should ask for a replacement
A dozen stickers is a lot of stickers for a set that costs US$230 (AU$400 in Australia). It's way too many. Lego needs to lift its game.
ETA: This is a great review. Thanks.
Do you know how many stickers the rivendell set has?
If you want a cow, sheep, horse, etc. with this set, you could always just add them to a PAB order when you but this set. Would only add about $20 or so depending on the quantity ordered, which is about the same increase you mentioned if they were to be included in the set initially.
My problem is the old goat set had TWO goats. 🐐🐐 New goat set has one goat and a funny goat sign.🐐 I’ll get this set and add my 3 white cmfs. Then my Falcons are going to visit Felsa.
This is a good and fair review, and your criticisms seem justified. However, I almost didn't watch the video at all because even tho you thought the set was really good, the title felt negative to me. Good video tho!
I’m torn. The colours are very clashing. Needs horse carriage with horse. Needs a hangman.
I agree with everything…except the hangman, that doesn’t seem necessary
Nawt the hangman chi
i dont feel like we get worth with the prices...
The title is : Why did the Medieval Town Square Disappoint me. Four minutes in and you’ve only spoken of stickers. I feel your criticism has been diluted by unnecessary praise . I want to know first; what your reservations are, then elaborate. Nine minute mark and you’ve lost me. I’m.no longer that curious .
I like the review. While I agree that stickers are fine I disagree with the animals. Just buy some extra animals. There is no reason to make the set more expensive for everyone else. I dont need yet another horse or cows. Also realistically anyone buying this also has the goat herder and therefore a second goat.
Oh no, not missing second goat 🙄, what a disappointment...
To me it's just so boring colour wise
No reply’s on comments. Hmm interesting